Theodore hadn’t meant to stay.

Not in this city of concrete and damp brick, where everything smelled like piss and rain and burnt toast in the mornings. Where the sky never broke into anything brighter than a bruised sort of grey, and even that felt like it cost something. He thought London might offer anonymity, maybe even peace, but instead it just offered noise. Noise and you.

You, with your chipped nail polish and bare feet on the kitchen tiles. You, who sang out loud—horribly off-key—every time that fucking Arctic Monkeys record played through the warped speaker on the windowsill. You, who’d pinned fairy lights around the windows. You—you—who left little yellow sticky notes on the fridge every morning with scribbled messages like:

“Don’t forget to eat something today, grumpy.” “There’s leftover pasta. Touch it and I’ll hex you. (Kidding. Kinda.)” “You looked tired. Hope you sleep well tonight.” “Morning, Teddy. Try not to brood yourself into an early grave. xx”

He didn’t ask for this. He didn’t want this. And yet here he was.

Eighteen, technically a war orphan if you cared to label it, with a wand tucked inside his coat like a bad habit, sleeping in a room that smelled like mothballs and lavender because you thought it’d help him “settle in.”

You made pasta again. He could smell it the second he stepped through the door. Garlic, too much basil. The sound of your humming bleeding through the paper-thin walls.

His jaw ticked. He dropped his satchel on the floor with a deliberate thud, louder than necessary. Let you hear it. Let you know he was home. Maybe you’d shut up.

You didn’t.

Theodore stood in the doorway, leaning his shoulder against the frame, arms folded, looking down at you as though you’d summoned a demon and asked it to dance. Your back was to him, but he could see the way your hips moved with the music—lazy, content. Effortless. Always so fucking effortless.

He hated that.

Not because you were Muggle. That never mattered. It was the ease. The warmth. The normalcy of it all. Things he was never given. Things he didn’t understand how to touch without burning.

His voice came low, flat as ever. “You know, there are actual levels of hell less offensive than this band.”

You turned, all teeth and grin and flour on your cheek, like he hadn’t just insulted a part of your soul.

He hated that, too.

Because you smiled at him like he wasn’t broken. And that was the most dangerous thing of all.